FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media contact: Grace Nicolette, Director of Marketing & Programming: (617) 492-0800 x 236
Cambridge, MA — The Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) has elected Richard Ober to join its Board of Directors.
Ober has led the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation as its president and CEO since 2010. The Foundation, which manages $600 million and awards some 5,000 grants and scholarships throughout the region totaling more than $30 million every year, is the largest private provider of nonprofit grants and student aid in northern New England.
“Dick Ober is a community foundation leader who brings great smarts and imagination to his role. He knows the significance of foundation effectiveness to community impact,” said Grant Oliphant, CEP Board Chair and President of the Heinz Endowments. “He understands the importance of community foundations playing a leadership role, but one that is rooted in a deep understanding of the needs of the nonprofit organizations in the region and the people they seek to serve.”
Ober’s career has been devoted to community-focused work in New Hampshire. Before first joining the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation in 2008 as its vice president of civic leadership and communications, he held leadership roles at the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests and the Monadnock Conservancy. He has also served on numerous nonprofit and public boards in the state, including as chair of the New Hampshire Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Energy Board. Ober has been widely recognized for his local work by the State of New Hampshire and the Environmental Protection Agency, and Business New Hampshire magazine has continually named him one of the state’s most influential individuals.
With more than 30 years of experience in nonprofit management and civic affairs, Ober has written and lectured widely about community philanthropy and civic life. He is also the author of The Northern Forest, a book focusing on the vast wooded regions of the northeastern United States and the lives of those who call them home. He holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and political science from Plymouth State University.
“Dick Ober’s experience and commitment to effectiveness will be of great benefit to CEP,” said CEP President Phil Buchanan, noting that CEP has intensified its commitment to community foundations in recent years. “We have heightened our commitment to working with community foundations through new product offerings such as our Donor Perception Report (DPR) and focused research studies on issues such as community foundation donor satisfaction and community foundation strategy.”
Ober was elected to a three-year term. He joins a Board of Directors that includes: Chair Grant Oliphant (president of The Heinz Endowments), Phil Buchanan (president of CEP), Tiffany Cooper Gueye (CEO of BELL, Building Educated Leaders for Life), Crystal Hayling (former president and CEO of Blue Shield of California Foundation), Kathryn E. Merchant (former president of The Greater Cincinnati Foundation), Hilary Pennington (vice president, education, free expression, and creativity at the Ford Foundation), Christy Pichel (former president of the Stuart Foundation), Lynn Perry Wooten (professor of strategy and management & operations at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business), Nadya K. Shmavonian (independent consultant to foundations and nonprofits), Vince Stehle (executive director of Media Impact Funders), and Fay Twersky (director of the Effective Philanthropy Group at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation).
About the Center for Effective Philanthropy
The Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) is a nonprofit organization with a mission to provide data and create insight so philanthropic funders can better define, assess, and improve their effectiveness and impact. CEP received initial funding in 2001 and has offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts and San Francisco, California. For more information on CEP’s work, including its research, programming, and assessment tools, see www.cep.org.
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